Perhaps optimistically, I blithely promised our geometra - which is essentially means 'surveyor', but most importantly in this context it means the person who will be filing our planning application with the Comune - that the ruin would have been entirely cleaned out (by me) before capo'd'anno. Which means addressing the fifty years and more of accumulated neglect since the roof was removed from the structure after it had last ceased to be lived in: toppled stonework; beams that had crashed to the ground as floors had given way, over time; broken floor tiles; and mountains of earth and greenery, with three or four trees, of varying degrees of maturity, which had seeded themselves and by now generously over-topped the structure. It doesn't help that it's barely stopped raining ever since we completed the purchase, and so available working days have been limited.
It's been an archaeological voyage of discovery...
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| Fallen roof-beams, and weeds |
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| Once the worst of the greenery had been removed... |
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| What we'd thought was a blocked-up doorway, turned out to be a hearth - complete with a hook for an iron pot - and a ruined chimney... |
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| Progress! Ancient flagstones unearthed as the floor to the eastern room |
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| And ancient terracotta as the floor to the western room |
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| The base of the staircase, emerging from the mud. |
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| And the remains of the (18th Century?) wood stove. |
Onward and upward...
Tonight's dinner:
Endives gratin
Sausages in dry marsala buttered spinach
Pear & chocolate clafouti
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